What makes Water-types so good?

mertyville

mertyville

Be it in-game or competitive, the Water-type has always been prominate in one way or another.
Generally the things that make it good are obvious:
1. A lot of HM moves are Water moves
2. the Water Pokemon get access to good STAB relatively early
3. Ice coverage is on almost in the moveset of any Water-type
4. Few weaknesses and offensively hitting common types
5. some of the most broken moves are Water moves like Scald

These reasons above make even the most bland Water starter a really good pick. If you are a newcomer, you can just pick the Water starter and have little trouble. Eventually you will find a way to teach it an ice move and the early games Surf. Even the 'too much water' region has its best Pokemon as Swampert in-game and Kyogre in Sapphire. DPP's best HM slave is Bibarel.
Even when I think at the worst moments like when you use Squirtle in FRLG since you have to use Bubble early on, you fight Brock who's Pokemon won't even survive that.
With very few exceptions, generally a Water-type never drags your team down in-game (we don't talk about Luvdisc).

So I wonder if there is more to Water-types that make them so good.
 
Everyone knows Ice is a great type competitively (and has been since day 1), but it's pretty good in other games, too. Every Kanto/Johto game seems Ice being an incredibly effective type against one of the harder members of the Elite Four, and in Sinnoh Ice Beam is nice for Cynthia's Garchomp if you can pull it off. But in addition that, Ice being good against Grass means you might actually find a Water type that's a decent counter toward your rival's starter. Grass isn't so useless/unseen a type as it is in competitive, so Ice really just gets another W as a result.

Water being good against annoying defense Ground/Rock types is a huge plus for in-game too, of course, since so many games feature them in great numbers.
 
In-game, it's very much just few weaknesses(1) and a broadly-useful STAB(2), combined with specific luck on how types shook out.

1: Grass types are meh offensively, Electrics tend to be rare and well-telegraphed, so you can always lead a water type on routes and be sure you won't take a bunch of damage outside of the single power plant in each game.
2: Dragons are unheard of, Ice coverage beats Grass(and Dragon), and a single normal move lets your Water beat opposing Waters. You can basically always have a spam-worthy attack in any matchup.

And it's not like Water SEEMS that insane. But compare Fire, with a weakness to Ground/Rock/Water and is resisted by Water/Rock/Dragon. That's one more type in each category, but because of which types those are, there's whole chunks of the game where you can't lead your Fire starter. Any surf route or cave, a Fire mon is dead weight. It's just not on the same level, even if it seems like it should be.
 
When I'm playing Monotype, one of the biggest reasons Water is a threat is because of rain. Snow/Hail is Ice-specific and that type has its own issues, and both Sun and Sand can't be used at full power because they often split the raw numbers and the synergistic abilities between two types (Fire/Grass and Rock/Ground respectively). Meanwhile Water has many Swift Swim mons that also get a 50% damage boost to their STAB.

For ingame, I want to bring some attention to Gyarados in particular. Magikarp is consistently one of the easiest mons to find. In older generations its training arc was painful to work with its gimmick, and it still might have been a while before Gyarados gets some good attacks. With an easier time getting Exp to the backline and widespread movepool improvements, level 21 (when Gyara currently learns Waterfall) comes off as way too soon for something easily capable of being an endgame carry to come online.
 
Basically, too many stacks in favor of it.

It’s fine if Water was meant to be the more balanced with less favorable match-ups and less unfavorable ones vs Fire being offense oriented and Grass being defensive… but the practice between “selfishly” benefits Rain on top of being great in both offense and defense, and it’s an easy top 3 alongside Steel and Fairy.

If anything, I believe Water is a bit too synergistic to itself and Ice for it’s own good, with Electric being far too rare for it’s own good in-game (and even then it suffered in diversity comparable to Fighting) and felt like the one type any new type should not be weak to if it wish to make an impact without being as bad as Fairy in terms of bringing negative impacts to the other Types overall.
 
A major plus for Water in-game is that Surf is a good (and mandatory) move in the first four gens that tends to come online decently early. You are funneled into grabbing a Water-type at some point, and their overall abundance (literally the most common type) and diversity mean you have the pick of the litter for whatever suits your team composition and playstyle. Everyone has some sort of experience using a Water-type, and unless they caught a Goldeen they probably came out of it with at least a decent impression.

Also, Gyarados exists and is busted in every game it's in.
 
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Karxrida said:
Also, Gyarados exists and is busted in every game it's in.
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Guys I think we found SmithPlays Pokémon’s alt


Real talk, Water is a Type that I’m quite fond of but a lot of that fondness comes from what I believe to be its greatest strength- its consistency. Maybe more than any other Type I believe Water to be the most consistent and reliable in the franchise. It’s not going to be in the discussion of “is this Type broken or overpowered?” very often but it’s basically never going to feel underwhelming either. Pretty much by design Water benefits from Ice’s existence as a Type, being a Type that both resists Ice and appreciates their offensive coverage against their own resists, namely Grass, Dragon, and even opposing Water-Types if you add Freeze-Dry into the mix.

The fact that things like Freeze-Dry, Salt Cure, and multiple Abilities that grant a Water immunity exist is a testament to Water’s dominance in battle in spite of its seemingly not very flashy performance in the type chart. Unlike Terrains, weather (in this case Rain) still provides a 50% damage increase as opposed to a 33% increase, too. I think that natural synergy and winning matchup against Ice does a lot of Water’s heavy lifting on its own, especially in Gen 1 where Ice was a noticeably stronger Type across the board, but in (almost) every generation the PokéDex roster available had been pretty solid, often times excellent. The only core series game I can think of where Water feels somewhat underwhelming is Black & White 1 and even then that’s only because you’re forced into only using Unova Pokémon for the main story. (Fun fact, they’re also the only HM games where Surf isn’t required to use a single time!)
 
Ironmage said:
When I'm playing Monotype, one of the biggest reasons Water is a threat is because of rain. Snow/Hail is Ice-specific and that type has its own issues, and both Sun and Sand can't be used at full power because they often split the raw numbers and the synergistic abilities between two types (Fire/Grass and Rock/Ground respectively). Meanwhile Water has many Swift Swim mons that also get a 50% damage boost to their STAB.
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If I remember correctly, Water’s one of the only types to actually be banned in certain Monotype metagames, the one that comes to my mind being how Water’s sometimes included alongside Normal and Psychic in RBY Monotype’s banlist. Sometimes it’s Water that isn’t allowed, other times it’s Starmie that’s gotten the boot, but it seems to depend on who’s playing and the decided upon rules for that specific battle or tournament.

In any case, Monotype events of any kind, not just here on Smogon actually, historically have a tendency to focus on individual Pokémon that may be of concern- for example, the four Tapus creating controversy in Gen 7 Monotype settings (I believe Tapu Lele got banned outright in our Smogon version)- and it’s not often that an entire Type gets banned from these metagames. To be fair, RBY’s type chart is held together by Scotch Tape* and rubber bands, by far being the most unbalanced generation to date, but the fact that Water is sometimes looked at on the same or a similar enough level to RBY’s Big 2 Types is kind of crazy to think about. To my knowledge there haven’t been any full bans on Types outside of RBY, for context.
 
bdt2002 said:
If I remember correctly, Water’s one of the only types to actually be banned in certain Monotype metagames, the one that comes to my mind being how Water’s sometimes included alongside Normal and Psychic in RBY Monotype’s banlist. Sometimes it’s Water that isn’t allowed, other times it’s Starmie that’s gotten the boot, but it seems to depend on who’s playing and the decided upon rules for that specific battle or tournament.

In any case, Monotype events of any kind, not just here on Smogon actually, historically have a tendency to focus on individual Pokémon that may be of concern- for example, the four Tapus creating controversy in Gen 7 Monotype settings (I believe Tapu Lele got banned outright in our Smogon version)- and it’s not often that an entire Type gets banned from these metagames. To be fair, RBY’s type chart is held together by Scotch Tape* and rubber bands, by far being the most unbalanced generation to date, but the fact that Water is sometimes looked at on the same or a similar enough level to RBY’s Big 2 Types is kind of crazy to think about. To my knowledge there haven’t been any full bans on Types outside of RBY, for context.
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water Is by far the easiest type to nuzlocke and is why water mono type nuzlockes aren't that common
 
Just to add to some of the things I have written, with the starters they pretty much feel like the water type is the easy mode in most cases.

RB: Squirtle learns all the important moves it needs at the right time
- Water STAB destroys the 4x weak Rock/Ground types
- Mega Punch TM helps out with the neutral match up Misty
- 100 base power ground move in Dig against Surge
- Ice Beam against Erica

GSC: Totodile has similar advantages and even makes up for evolving for its first state later
- Rage and Fury Swipe to break through problematic bulky attackers
- final evolution is the earliest of all starters (so far) at lv30
- Dig and Bite against the Ghost Gym
- Ice Punch TM to clean up Lance's team
- while they tried to balance out with giving it 79 base SpA, the base power of some of these Special Moves and the utility they are giving make up for it

RSE: Mudkip
- gets a secondary typing in Ground enhancing its massive movepool
- Learns Water, Ice, Rock, Normal, Fighting and Ground moves

These 3 alone feel like not a single stat point is really wasted. Even Swampert being slow doesn't matter much in a region full of slow 'bulky' mixed attackers.
I could probably go on but I think that pretty much says anything I need. Tho Piplup I personally have bad experiences with, it probably does perform good enough and you can still use it as your HM slave if you don't want to rely on the Beaver.
 
In general, I think what makes Water good is that it's an excellent all-rounder type. It's not outstanding in either offense or defense but is effective in both, and is a very flexible type overall.

Grass and Fire in contrast are very specialized. Grass is solid defensively despite its weaknesses because it has three great resistances, and has tools like Leech Seed, status powders, and draining moves, but is less ideal offensively overall. Fire is skewed towards offense, being a powerhouse offensive type with moves like Flamethrower and Fire Blast, but is poor defensively. This is reinforced by most Grass-types being tanks while most Fire-types are glass cannons. Water is a good all rounder, and it also has Pokemon that can do either offense or defense and be good at it. Some are skewed to offense, some are skewed to defense, but they're largely good at what they do.

That all rounder essence makes good Water-types valuable.
 
ScraftyIsTheBest said:
In general, I think what makes Water good is that it's an excellent all-rounder type. It's not outstanding in either offense or defense but is effective in both, and is a very flexible type overall.

Grass and Fire in contrast are very specialized. Grass is solid defensively despite its weaknesses because it has three great resistances, and has tools like Leech Seed, status powders, and draining moves, but is less ideal offensively overall. Fire is skewed towards offense, being a powerhouse offensive type with moves like Flamethrower and Fire Blast, but is poor defensively. This is reinforced by most Grass-types being tanks while most Fire-types are glass cannons. Water is a good all rounder, and it also has Pokemon that can do either offense or defense and be good at it. Some are skewed to offense, some are skewed to defense, but they're largely good at what they do.

That all rounder essence makes good Water-types valuable.
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This. Fire and Water have been giving Grass the boot for a long time, I would argue personally. Grass’s weighted matchups against Water, Electric, Ground, and Rock are just strong enough to account for what is numerically one of the worst head-to-head matchup records of any Type alongside Bug and Normal (4-7 and 0-3 respectively) and a specialized focus around defensive integrity and healing. Fire, meanwhile, has a decent offensive spread but I think their defensive matchup spread is truly underrated, with weaker resists against Bug and Grass, sure, but Ice, Steel, Fairy, and opposing Fire are all pretty good resistances to have, alongside a burn immunity for good measure. Having the second-most amount of resistances of any Type and that burn immunity is part of why Fire’s such a good Tera Type.

Water ultimately remains the most consistent of the three, though, with its only matchup that wins against it both offensively and defensively, ironically, bring Grass itself. Electric is relatively rare and doesn’t resist Water, Dragon is both rare and late in most games, and the Ice resist isn’t quite what it used to be but it’s still not resisting Water itself, all while retaining its good matchups into Fire, Ground, Rock, and Steel. Rain is also probably the best of the three Field Effects for each of the starter Types, and the Surf HM, even in games where it’s not needed as often as others or at all, significantly increases the chance that your Water-Type of choice will have a good move to use compared to the more limited move pools of the other two Types, especially prior to Gen 4. Water and Ice simply have outstanding overage together but even if they didn’t, many Water-Type can rely on their sheer power or other type synergies all on their own, sometimes even warping the balance of which starter you might want to pick.
 
One thing that also really makes Water one of the best types is how it always has the best tools without any downsides that other types get.

Fire can’t get both a damage and speed boost except for a single average Mon, Rock and Ice both still are lacking defensively despite their weathers buffing them.
But Water gets both STAB + a damage boost in the Rain and gets Swift Swim consistently no matter the generation and has 10/10 STAB options.
Rain gets banned how many times when it’s best user was a 95 special attack Kingdra?

And that’s just talking about Rain. Grass and Dragon are both shut down easily by the literally omnipresent Ice Beam and anything that isn’t Water is good for other Water types. Hidden Power grass was so ubiquitous in Gen 3 for a reason, Electric is not strong enough because of its always present Ground weakness, Bulky waters are just that much of a threat.

Mind you, that’s just competitive. In the story, Grass is available at best in a single area early on, and Electric isn’t doing much better either. There’s still no Elite 4 member who uses either types, so once you’ve gotten past their areas, that’s it, there’s basically nothing that can stop you anymore.

I’d say that Water is one of three types that could get away with a nerf of some kind. Be it offensively in a new resistance, probably Ice, or a new weakness, likely in Poison.
 
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Just add a weakness to Poison (Pollution hurts water) and that's all ! Today, Electric & Grass moves are not always great coverage (and electric not spread in game). And offensively, Dragon are nowhere. Water, it's a tie, and for Grass, you can swap or use Ice type move coverage
 
Antihaxxer said:
Just add a weakness to Poison (Pollution hurts water) and that's all ! Today, Electric & Grass moves are not always great coverage (and electric not spread in game). And offensively, Dragon are nowhere. Water, it's a tie, and for Grass, you can swap or use Ice type move coverage
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Poison would be my first choice as well, despite the buff it got against Fairy types it's still a pretty dull type offensively. Plus unlike Grass/Dragon it can't be countered by 99.9% of Water types via coverage
 
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